Allan Appel Photo
Hundreds plot New Haven Rising’s next move in the Elicker Era.
That concept was at the heart of first post-election organizing gathering of the labor-connected activist group New Haven Rising. The gathering drew more than 200 enthusiastic people — including Mayor-Elect Justin Elicker — Wednesday night to the cafeteria of Hill Regional Career High School.
Founded in 2014 by Rev. Scott Marks and other activists connected to Yale’s UNITE HERE unions, New Haven Rising has successfully pushed Yale to hire thousands of local people for permanent jobs, especially from low-income neighborhoods.
What comes next?
Ken Suzuki and Eunice Chambers at one of the organizing tables.
Wednesday evening’s theme was double-edged, touting past success and unveiling a new organizing emphasis: The approximately $1 billion over the past decade, or $146 million annually, that would be flowing into city coffers every year if Yale University’s and Yale-New Haven Hospital’s properties paid the same share of taxes as homeowners do.
“I’m not hitting on Yale. It should be better than Harvard” and contribute more to a budget-strapped city, said Marks.
Then speakers like Sarah Miller, a public-school parent organizer and co-chair of Elicker’s transition team, described the needs that go unfunded.
Scott Marks.
“Kids have no stable after school program” at places like Columbus Family Academy, Miller said. “No teacher should be buying supplies. No library should be shuttered. No college counselor should be laid off.”
“If We Had $146 Million .… “
“If we had $146 million a year, we could … what?” was a call-and-response chant throughout the evening, as speakers noted that 34 percent of New Haveners pay half of their income for housing.
As people sat at the Career High cafeteria tables and awaited a promised Caribbean style dinner, Marks said that a cool $146 million a year could provide New Haveners with enough teachers to reduce all class sizes by half; build 887 more units of affordable housing; put 12,000 little kids into critically needed quality day care; reduce the mill rate from 42 to 27; and fix one million potholes.
The pothole statistic garnered among the loudest hurrahs.
Among the attendees were a dozen incumbent and newly elected alders, along with State Reps. Juan Candelaria, Al Paolillo, and Toni Walker.
The final speaker was Mayor-Elect Elicker. During the course of his successful mayoral campaign, Elicker attended nearly all of New Haven Rising’s events.
“I need to practice my call-and-response,” Elicker quipped as he took the microphone.
In brief remarks he echoed the themes of the evening: “We must be sure that the major entities in the city contribute their fair share. There should be more teachers, more after-school programs, and a good job for every member of the community. We must do this together. With you all.”
Elicker.
After the remarks and a PowerPoint presentation about the $146 million, attendees sat down with organizers to a working dinner to itemize issues key in their lives, how Yale’s contributions might help, and how Yale might best be approached.
Reporters were asked not to look in on these break-out gatherings or to record what was said so that people could more freely speak their minds.
Why this approach?
“Self-interest in organizing,” Marks said, “is key.”
He added that in the presentations this year “We’ll add all that Yale is [already] doing, all the good in the city. I’ve found you can work with Yale,” he said.